2022 four-star running back Gi’Bran Payne reveals commitment date; Notre Dame in the mix
It’s been a long recruiting journey for Cincinnati La Salle class of 2022 running back Gi’Bran Payne and one that will end on Friday at 3 p.m. ET.
To make a long story short, Payne was a national recruit as a sophomore, racking up offers from Power Five colleges. But Payne dealt with a high ankle sprain as a junior and a knee injury as a senior, which made some schools back off. Before the start of his senior year, Payne committed to Indiana, a school that wasn’t originally in his top five.
Payne signed with the Hoosiers last December. But Indiana running backs coach Deland McCullough left the program for the same position at Notre Dame. A few weeks later, Payne announced on Twitter that he had been released from his National Letter of Intent with Indiana.
“I just want to explore options more,” Payne told the Cincinnati Enquirer after releasing the news of his release. “Relationships weren’t the same and kind of faded. There wasn’t much communication there, and it didn’t feel as good anymore.”
Payne seems to have narrowed his options down to two schools: Kentucky and Notre Dame. The 5-10, 190-pounder officially visited Kentucky at the beginning of last week and ended the week in South Bend.
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“When I got there, they were really excited to see me,” Payne told BlueandGold.com about his Notre Dame official visit. “I watched practice, and it was the first day that they were doing real contact and a scrimmage before the spring game. I was hanging out at the facility, made videos and took pictures. I hung out around the players.”
The On3 Recruiting Prediction Machine (RPM) favors Notre Dame to land Payne at 43.8 percent.
Between his relationships with McCullough, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman and director of recruiting Chad Bowden, both of whom were recruiting him hard while previously working at Cincinnati, and new analyst Jeremy Larkin, an alum of Payne’s high school, Payne has many connections to the Fighting Irish.
Notre Dame should be considered the team to beat heading into his decision.
According to the On3 Consensus, the four-star recruit is the nation’s No. 334 overall player and No. 27 running back for the 2022 class. He’s also the No. 12 player from his home state of Ohio.
During his recruiting process, Payne held offers from the likes of Alabama, Notre Dame, Penn State, Michigan, Kentucky, Florida, Iowa, Wisconsin, Cincinnati, Northwestern, Louisville, Minnesota and others.
